1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to networks, and more particularly to systems, devices, and methods for installing and configuring communications networks, such as home networks, Small Office Home Office (SOHO) networks, and the like.
2. Discussion of the Background
Small networks, such as home networks and Small Office Home Office (SOHO) networks, referred to generally as home networks, have a myriad of forms. Such home networks can include devices such as personal computers (PC), personal digital assistants or handheld PCs (PDA), computing tablets (Tablet PCs), audio and video devices, file and print servers, and various other devices under broad categories of thin clients and Internet appliances, including smart appliances such as white good appliances (e.g., refrigerator). One type of home network uses the processing power and flexibility related to general purpose computing platforms such as PCs that can run different applications on an operating system, such as Windows operating system by Microsoft Corporation. Other types of home networks are based on consumer electronics platforms such as set-top boxes and audio and video receivers, which are dedicated function devices with data processors and memory. Another type of home network is based on intelligent appliances, such as white good appliances, and generally intended for home automation.
Of the different types of devices that can appear in a home network, the PC is the most common networked device today. An increasing number of households have at least two PCs. Typically, one of the PCs is connected to the Internet or World Wide Web (www) through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) connection. Increasing numbers of users want all of the PCs in their home to connect simultaneously to the Internet by sharing the single ISP connection.
The different types of home networks will imminently converge, presenting challenges to the installing and configuring of a home network in which the various types of devices can communicate with each other and with the WAN and Internet. Various standards and interfaces have been or are being developed to enable home networking. Examples of these standards are: Home Audio/Video Interoperability (HAVi), Universal Plug and Play (UPnP™), Wireless Fidelity or WiFi, Bluetooth™, HomeRF, Home Phone Networking Alliance (HPNA), HomePlug, Ultra Wide Band (UWB), and Zigbee™.
Consumer electronics and appliance manufacturers have long considered home networks a significant opportunity to drive adoption of new products and services by the consumer. Currently, however, home networks are difficult to install, primarily on account of network settings that are required to network devices. Consequently, ordinary users of electronics appliances and computers are generally not home network users. To realize widespread adoption, the installation and configuration of home networks should be sufficiently simple to be carried out by lay users and with devices that are priced at mass market price points. This requires either that the users become technologically sophisticated overall, or that the home network technology advances sufficiently to require little or no expertise on the part of the user without significantly adding to the cost of the device.
Educating users to be technologically sophisticated is an intractable challenge. Even for PC users, who are generally more technically sophisticated than others, current home networking of PCs requires the user to follow instructions presented in a user guide and to configure the various network device(s) manually. For the typical user, this process is overly complex. For example, currently available routers for home networks typically require a strict setup procedure with numerous manually entered network settings that need replicating on other devices in the home network. However, a departure from, or error in, following the step-by-step instructions provided in the user guide can result in a failed attempt to set up the home network. Further, factory default settings on network devices are typically unsatisfactory for secure usage. For instance, manufacturers typically distribute their 802.11b equipped routers with the same default Service Set Identifier (SSID) setting on each device and with the Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) security feature deactivated. Unless the user specifically changes these default settings on the router and on each node device on the network, where appropriate, the network is not secure. As a result, the typical user often finds such devices too difficult to install in a home network. Because routers (i.e., gateways) are often critical to enabling multiple PCs to share an Internet connection, many users do not advance beyond a broadband connection to the ISP using a single PC.
On the technical advancement front, an initiative such as HAVi, for example, which is based on IEEE 1394, has been taken towards producing a complete system architecture including a network protocol, device interfaces, device architecture, various network management systems and managers, and device classes. Although the HAVi initiative may achieve plug-and-play simplicity once a HAVi infrastructure is in place, HAVi requires a class of compliant devices, a suitable network architecture and wiring, and, because of such requirements, results in more expensive devices and requires a major change in consumer behavior. As a result, acceptance of HAVi has been slow and with negligible market penetration.
Generally, among existing products, in order to enable the router to access the Internet, the router requires configuring of ISP settings. The widely accepted method among existing available products is to access an HTML page user interface of a router from a PC using a manufacturer assigned router private IP address or URL, and entering the settings on the HTML pages served up by a web server in the router. In order to connect the router to the LAN, the router requires TCP/IP settings and LAN protocol settings, among others.
Some of the TCP/IP settings are: range of private IP addresses that the router issues to PCs; dynamic addressing using DHCP, or static IP addressing for node devices; and sharing a single public IP address using NAT. Some solutions use an application on a node device to enter the router settings that are then written to the router registry, thereby eliminating the need for writing to HTML pages on the router.
Common LAN protocol settings are required for network devices using a specific LAN protocol (e.g., 802.11b) to communicate with each other. In the case of a network using 802.11b, at minimum a Service Set Identifier (or SSID) is required on each 802.11b-equipped router. Additional 802.11b settings may also be required or strongly recommended, such as a common WEP encryption code on all suitable devices.
Recognizing the problems associated with complexity of setting up home networks, manufacturers of home networking products have made improvements to product features described hereunder in the context of configuring required networking parameters. Some examples of improvements to the description above have been incorporated recently in available routers, and described here. Routers are commonly defaulted with LAN NAT and DHCP settings as “ON”, recognizing that most users use this configuration. For routers supporting WiFi, the SSID is defaulted to a standard factory default (e.g. Linksys routers have a default SSID of ‘linksys’), and WEP is ‘OFF’ in order to enable the user to follow fewer steps to set up the network. Typically the WEP key is an ASCII or Hexadecimal (HEX) string. In order to simplify the entry of a WEP key, some manufacturers allow the user to enter a password or pass phrase that then generates an ASCII or HEX WEP key.
In the instance where ISPs do not require authentication other than the MAC address of the modem, the router can be just plugged into the modem and it connects to the Internet without much user setup of ISP settings. However, when this is not the case, user configuration of the router with ISP settings is required.
Some of the problems that still exist in current routers despite the above improvements are: In setting up the router, the user has to know whether the ISP requires settings other than modem's MAC address to authenticate the user. If so, the user has to configure the router accordingly with settings obtained from the ISP, or settings obtained from the device connected to the ISP. Whereas the SSID may be defaulted in the router, the user still has to acknowledge and enter the same SSID on the node devices (e.g., PCs). Further since routers from the manufacturer are defaulted to the same SSID, the user is advised to change the SSID manually to ensure privacy of her network. In addition, users should use WEP at minimum to secure their network from snooping, since SSID is not secure. Defaulting to WEP “OFF” is therefore well recognized as a fundamental flaw in current solutions. In order to turn WEP (or another form of encryption such as WPA) “ON” requires the user to enter an encryption code or ‘pass phrase’ on the router, and the same code on the PCs.
Among current node devices, such as PCs, configuration of the device for networking is usually accompanied with installation of the network interface card (NIC). Different manufacturers adopt different approaches for the various required settings. While some manufacturers only facilitate the installation of the NIC and set up of the network protocol parameters, others enable additional network features such as file and print sharing, and setup of Workgroup Names for Windows, among others. However, the common thread across the various products is that is that users are required to enter settings on at least one node device for the multiple different parameters required, and some or all of these settings are also required to be input to the router or other node devices by the same or another means. This also introduces room for pilot error in case the user makes a typographical error, which will result in a non-networked device.
Improvements in configuring node devices for networking include, in the Windows XP operating system, introduction by Microsoft of a Zero Configuration Utility for WiFi that gives users a list of available WiFi networks. If the networks are broadcasting their SSID and do not have encryption, the user can log on to the network by simply accepting a network in the Zero Configuration Utility interface. However, should the network require authentication or an encryption key, the user has to enter this information. Consequently, Microsoft's Zero Configuration Utility for WiFi in Windows XP reduces the steps for configuring a WiFi NIC in some instances, but not always. Microsoft's configuration utility supplied with its line of WiFi home networking adapters (e.g., Model: MN 520 PC card) provides a feature to enable a user to backup or copy on floppy network entries made on a PC. This permits ease of transfer of network settings to other node devices, thereby minimizing repeated manual entries of the required setting on subsequent network PCs.
While these features in network configuration of node devices have improved the user experience, there is still complexities and room for user error. For example, with the above mentioned methods, the user still needs to create the settings on at least one PC, in addition to setting up the router with the required settings. The user, therefore, needs to be cognizant of required parameters and settings. This in itself is asking too much of a lay user. Using factory default settings as network settings can cause the user to have security problems that the user may not be aware of. In addition, with reference to Microsoft's solution of transferring network settings among devices, in many laptop PCs, floppy drives do not exist, or are swappable with CD/DVD drives, thereby precluding the benefit of the feature.
Consequently, none of the above-stated requirements for home networks is realized yet, and the adoption of home networks, although growing, remains low. Thus, there is a need for a system and method for installing and configuring networking parameters for a small network, as in single subnet or single router network, that avoids the pitfalls and disadvantages of the aforementioned approaches to home network configuration that rely on users' abilities to understand different networking parameters and their correct usage, as well as elimination of user error in configuring the same.
In recent art, network management tools for large (e.g., enterprise and commercial) networks rely on principles of distributed computing in order to simplify the configuration and management of such networks. Such network management tools use network objects, profiles and directories (hereafter, groupings) that are usually manually created and managed by network administrators. The grouping of network users or network parameters and settings are created with unique nomenclature. These grouping simplify cataloging, retrieving, transferring and processing of such information, in general applying the principles of distributed computing and network objects. The groupings are therefore abstractions of network parameters and profiles that are used to group the same into a logical structure for network management purposes. They are relevant to large and complex networks, and are dependent on technical skills of network administrators for configuring and managing the networks, and are usually based on a client-server network configuration. This approach of server based network objects is inappropriate for small networks, such as home networks.
It can also be argued that current home networks rely on rich user interfaces, such as a complex graphical user interface (GUI) of a PC. Evidently, devices lacking such an elaborate user interface are not good candidates for networking. Nevertheless, many devices can benefit from networking despite not having such user interfaces.